Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Heaven for the Red Devils

Congratulations to Manchester United for their victory in tonight's UEFA Champion's League Final. Football-wise it was a thrilling match, a very testy affair. There were many underlying dramas leading into this game and upon the start of the match a couple of other dramas were introduced. The rain and the condition of the newly installed grass field at Luzhniki Stadium were big factors in the game. The pitch tonight was a disgrace. UEFA must takes steps to make sure the fiasco that occurred today never happens again. The players were slipping all over the place and it wasn't just because of the rain. There were also many more players cramping up than usual and those lads all risked being injured on that poor excuse for a pitch. How can a stadium be a "UEFA 5 star" stadium and not have a proper natural grass pitch?

I actually thought Chelsea was the better team on the night but as we all know the penalty spot definition can be a lottery. So it's United who walk away with the trophy. Onto some of the kit analysis:

United came out in their red shirts, white shorts & socks look, I thought they might go with black socks since Chelsea usually wears white socks. Instead, Chelsea came out in an all–blue number right down to the socks. I still think they could have waited to introduce their new kit until after the final, but that being said that new Chelsea home kit is splendid. United's kit is nice too, although I think that "AIG" ad looks a bit, well, awkward. Chelsea were also sporting some new name and number font on the back of their jerseys. I tried to make out what the little logo was on the bottom of each digit, I think it was the Champions League logo. Could this be some new Champions League font? In last week's UEFA Cup final both Rangers and Zenit came out wearing the same font on the back of their jerseys with the UEFA Cup logo on the bottom. Maybe this is the direction UEFA is going in for the next season, making clubs wear standardized names & numbers in continental competitions. United were still wearing their Nike names & numbers.

According to this story, Chelsea goalie Petr Cech had a new kit designed for this final, a fluorescent orange number that he believes will trick players subconsciously to shoot right at him. It didn't seem to work too well, as Cech was only able to save 1 of United's 7 penalty shots.